With Mo Williams out and Damian Lillard already pulling major minutes in the playoffs, Trail Blazers coach Terry Stotts faced a challenge for Game 4 of his team's Western Conference semifinal series against San Antonio.

How to get Lillard a break during the game while keeping the offense flowing.

When Williams sat out Game 3 with a groin injury, Stotts turned to veteran Earl Watson. But Watson isn't the scoring threat that Williams is. Knowing his team had already been struggling to score against the Spurs, Stotts went a different way Monday: using no point guards when Lillard was out.

Stotts went about 10 minutes in the game – five in each half – with Lillard on the bench, and with Nicolas Batum, Will Barton and CJ McCollum on the court. The strategy bought Lillard some vital rest, and the Blazers played well with it, helping them to a 103-92 victory at the Moda Center.

"We didn't have a point guard, but we had three ball-handlers," Stotts said. "We had CJ, Will and Nic, they can all handle the ball."

Batum is a small forward, Barton a shooting guard and McCollum, while considered a combo guard, hasn't logged many minutes at the point. It might have been challenging for one of them to bring the ball up exclusively, which might invite the Spurs to pressure him, but with all three being options, they could share the responsibility.

"They all are capable of running some of our motion action where anybody can initiate it, so I felt like any one of those three guys, not all of them, would be pressured," Stotts said. "So I thought we could initiate offense, and with that, you still have good length and a good defensive presence as well."

When Lillard took his first rest, with 2:54 left in the first quarter, the Blazers were up 20-15. When Lillard returned, 2:19 into the second quarter, they still led, 33-30. Batum and Barton each had an assist in that stretch.

When Lillard took his second break, with 2:08 left in the third quarter, Portland was up 79-64. When he returned 1:14 into the fourth quarter, the Blazers led 85-70.

With the long between-quarters break because of network commercials, the substitution pattern helped Lillard get a good rest, and he played his best game of the series, finishing with 25 points and five assists and shooting 11 for 21 from the field.

"When you're down 0-3, you gotta try and do some things," Stotts said.